


Dreamscape Training

by Aithilin



Series: Dreamwalkers of Eos [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Dreamwalking, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 15:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13126422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Noctis is still learning how to navigate a dreamscape; this was supposed to be easy.





	Dreamscape Training

There was nothing muted about Insomnia as a city in the waking world. The lights cut through the night just as much as the King’s magic— an artificial barrier to support the Wall, constructed of advertisements and neon and the silly mascots of the corporations Noctis had known since his childhood. The signs flashed with weather and travel warnings, news from the various districts and with the familiar faces of Lucian celebrities, broadcasting all the elements of a busy life and economy with a controlled sense of familiarity and flash in equal parts. They were bright, and obnoxious, and often drowned out as a backdrop to the noise of traffic and shouting and the day to day life of the Crown City. The cacophony of cars and people— of living movement— from one side of the city to the next had always been a constant presence in Noctis’ life. The noise would deafen the tourists most days, and Noct would overhear the wonder at the silence of the Citadel lower levels when compared to the street, though he had always thought the resonating echo of voices and business and government to be little better than the streets and plazas outside.

He remembered how silent the world outside of the city was during the brief visit to the rest of the kingdom. Where the streets were empty of cars and the fields spread out like a wasteland. He remembered the silence of the night as he watched fireflies by a beach, before the scream of twisted metal and a daemon screeching in bloodlust deafened him. 

He remembered the way the city had fallen silent and dark in his dreams when he was injured after the treaty signing. And the distant rumble of storms still had him watching the windows and streets for the nightmares that had haunted him then. 

That’s how he knew this was a dream. 

The city, with it’s lights and noise and life, was muted around him as he walked. He could hear his own footsteps as clearly as if he was in the night-dark halls of the Citadel. As if his steps were echoing across the cavernous throne room with it’s glittering accents and imposing nature looming over anyone not born to climb the steps to the throne. 

He moved against the flow of the crowd, the citizens of the city parting like waves as he walked forward. There were lights on in every building lining the street, the wide windows open and living, like screens with a changing tableau as he passed. From the corner of his eye, he saw each store and office was packed with a mockery of daily life— people stood with papers and coffees in hand, in suits and ties and dresses and skirts, with crisp uniforms as they stood still like they were frozen. Like they were mannequins placed in the buildings to just fill the space. 

He knew he wasn’t registering anyone’s faces as he passed them. 

And he tried not to dwell on the slip of features as he moved. 

The street was the busiest he had ever seen it— that festival when he was little, where it had seemed like the whole of Insomnia had pressed together in the shadow of the Citadel to listen to him read the short statement that had been carefully prepared for him. He didn’t remember what the festival was, just that the sea of faces had been a blur as he stood at his father’s side, dressed up like the image of a prince he had seen in the paintings on the Citadel walls. The streamers were draped across the streets from light to light, dripping down the side of bridges between layers of the city like a colourful river. The confetti falling like raindrops. Even now, the colours had collected in the gutters, dull compared to the overwhelming brightness of his memory. 

Avenues around him shifted as he walked, as he stepped around the faceless crowd, and heard his own steps echo against the asphalt and concrete and he hurried through crosswalks and alleys. 

When he was hurt, there had been rain. When he was a child, there were monsters. 

Noctis thought he was just running a maze now. The Citadel towered behind him, never shrinking into the distance, never blocked by the turns he took the deeper into the city he went. 

_Where are you, hero?_

He had learnt to summon his phone in these sorts of dreamscapes just as easily as weapons. He had learnt the familiar focus of weight in his pocket, the blinding brightness of the screen as he typed and walked at the same time. 

_I’m at home, kitten. Come find me._

Noctis couldn’t remember the last real dream he had. The last dream that wasn’t some sort of training or exercise or game. The last dream that wasn’t building up defences against whatever darkness had been haunting him, tempting him, since the disaster of the treaty. Since he had taken a bullet for his father and cut down the treachery of an emperor. 

_I’m getting lost._

The echo of his footsteps were no longer synced with his movements, and he tried to refocus. He tried to listen for them, to remember what the streets should feel like. He paused on the sidewalk long enough to be jostled by the crowd. Nyx was going to laugh at him for losing his focus so easily, for losing the game so quickly. 

_Are you asking for a hint?_

He was. They both knew he was. 

_No. Just needed a breather._

_Hurry up, sunshine._

He rolled his eyes at the new nickname and tucked his phone back into his pocket. 

The crowd moved around him again as he searched for clues. Nyx always left a trail for safety. It was carved into the beads that were strung above his bed back home, and braided into his hair when they worked. It was a series of strange symbols that were foreign to the Lucian language, alien to the Galahdian language. They were etched by Astrals and Oracles for eons before cities like Insomnia existed, and Noctis let himself search for them as he walked. As the world shifted around him in a shimmer like the Wall above, and the markings on signs and streets warped and morphed into different languages and images. As the etchings he had spent hours studying and making and memorising glittered in the windows and concrete and steel of the city he had built from a lifetime of memories. 

Two signs for some new toy or gadget that Prompto had been excited for— had spent the last two days talking about— flashed on the bridge into the district draped with the Galahdian colours. Twin suns rising on either side of the eastern district. Where the cables of the bridge where woven with the royal purples of the Ulric standard. He refused to smile at the ridiculous sight conjured up as a landmark. 

_Subtle, hero._

_You love it. Hurry up, I’m getting hungry._

The bridge was blockaded— a line of faceless Crownsguard stood at attention, almost mechanical in their appearance— and Noct slipped through the crowd to the subway station.

He had been wary of the dark spaces since his last attempt at an excursion through a dreamscape; since the ghosts he had accidentally conjured up had led to Nyx losing memories that had been precious to him. Since he learnt not to follow memories of the dead. 

He tried to ignore the flashes of metal dressed in unsettling red and white uniforms around him. But he couldn’t resist grabbing the edge of one Imperial banner that had been hung over the Lucian advertisements as he passed to tear it down. He could yell at Nyx for that when they were done. When he wasn’t watching the shadows for something more sinister than the litter that was familiar in the transit tunnels. 

_Are you over the bridge yet?_

The light of his phone was bright enough for the tunnel, to cast the shadows aside long enough for Noctis to see that the tile of the walls, were giving way to stone and vines, the tracks were flooding. The dazzle of the light in the empty tunnel reflecting veins of red stones still embedded in the dark stone walls, where the pickaxes and shovels hadn’t reached to carve them out yet. 

_Over? The bridge was blockaded._

_Shit._

_WTF, Nyx?_

_Out. Now. Get above ground._

When he turned, there was only a longer stretch of tunnel behind him. He wanted to ask for help, to summon his weapons, to keep the shadows that were creeping through the tunnels at bay. 

Noct closed his eyes and focused. If he tried, he could hear the rush of trains mingle with the sounds of the brook flowing over the tracks. He could hear the inconsistent, electrical click of failing lights above him merging with the drip of water seeping through some crack in the stone. His steps sounded like they were on worn concrete more than they were on loose stone overrun with weeds and vegetation trying to reclaim an unused mine. 

At least the signs of a fallen Empire were gone. 

He started to follow the tracks, stepping lightly on the metal rail barely held together with rusted anchor nails, the tie beams a rotted wood he had never seen in the city before. The flood had tapered off to a trickle— a light flow where mine carts had left gouges in the stone, and where rail had been torn up for salvage. He could hear the hum of electricity in the line echoing off the walls of the tunnel network beneath the city. The veins of red stone still glittered in the light of his phone, dripping flakes of rubies like the confetti on the streets above. 

He followed the breeze, and ignored the way his footsteps were no longer synced with his movements. 

He ignored the second set of steps resonating in the tunnel with him. 

He ignored Ardyn as the man fell into step next to him. And the twists in the route that should have been a straight line. He ignored the shadows growling from beyond the light of his phone, and the sound of dripping that refreshed the suffocating stench of coppery blood that now weighted the air. He ignored the cold that clung to Ardyn and confused the fresh breeze he was trying to follow, and the hollow sound of claws scraping against chipped stone. 

“Oh dear, are you lost, Your Highness?”

“No. Go away.”

“I would hate for you to get turned around in these tunnels. So many strange pits and perils left by those who were so poorly trained in the past.”

Noctis focused on the feel of the breeze and the whistle of wind. He saw the shimmer of an etching in the stone walls— a familiar shape from the net above his bed, carved into a bead as Nyx told him the story behind it— the seeping shadows that seemed to always trail after Ardyn caught behind the piece of netting it represented. “I’m not talking to you.”

“Then this will be a very dull journey, I think. Perhaps I should fill the silence for us both?” Ardyn stepped behind him, moved to the side opposite of where the etching glowed as they passed. Noct clenched his jaw at the touch Ardyn trailed across the small of his back. “I only wonder if you had given any more thought to my offer. We do so rarely get to talk like this, after all.”

They had already followed several twists in the road, and splits in the rail. Where the rot of wood and rust of iron crumbled beneath his feet and led him through one fork in the road. He tried to focus at each turn, to not breath too deeply and ignore the golden eyes watching from the dark as Ardyn chuckled at his choices. He ignored the way his phone vibrated in his hand, not wanting to give the other man the satisfaction of knowing that there was something that could break his focus. The right path never seemed evident in the dark, until Noct spotted the small trail of etchings he knew were part of his safety net. At the next station, he pulled himself up to the platform, reluctant to let go of his phone but being forced to in order to get the right leverage on the damp concrete. He glared as Ardyn snatched the phone from the platform. 

“Hand it over.”

“Is that an order, dear prince?”

“Yes.”

“Then clearly you’ve forgotten who I am.” The shadows slipped from Ardyn like a cloak, seeping back into the corners and cracks in the flaking decorative tiles. Noct refused to flinch away from the flash of the phone’s camera as Ardyn took a picture of him. “King does still outrank prince?”

“You’re not the king.”

“Alas, no. And neither are you, _little star_.”

There was a light above the steps, beyond the ticket barriers, where confetti was still drifting down with the traffic and streamers from the festival trailed in like the trickle of water on the tracks. He could hear the city clearer now, less muted than when he started this game with Nyx. He could hear the traffic well above, and see the more familiar uniforms of the Glaives and Guards among the commuters. He could see his exit. 

The phone wasn’t worth the risk of those seeping, clawing, dripping shadows coiling around Ardyn’s feet. It wasn’t worth the promises that dripped with the Scourge from his lips— immortality, salvation of Eos— or the offers made when he was trapped in his dreams. He started towards the stairs and the army of Guards dressed in their ceremonial uniforms. He started towards where Clarus was standing, watching him with all the stern ferocity and kindness that Gladio had yet to master in his own expression. He paused only as Ardyn caught his arm and pressed the phone back into his hand. 

“Take care, Your Highness. I’m sure we will have the chance to speak soon.”

Noct shoved the phone into his pocket and ignored the shadows still trying to cling to him in the darkness. As he passed Clarus on the landing, the shadows started to burn away. He spotted Gladio in the crowd outside, out of uniform and walking with an arm around Prompto through the streets— laughing as they met up with Ignis at a cafe. He almost smiled at the look of utter indignity as Ignis picked confetti from his coffee and waved him over. 

It was a harmless distraction, and Noct used the promised safety of the familiar city to breathe again. 

_I’m fine. I’m out of the tunnel._ Noct sent in response to the flurry of questions and orders from Nyx. _I can see my friends at a cafe. Iggy’s waving me over._

_That’s my doing. I’m coming to meet you._

_No. I’m fine. I can finish this._

He tucked the phone away before Nyx could respond, and he waved to Iggy as he passed the cafe. The streamers and colourful banners of the district were tied together with the purple from Nyx’s family; long strips of purple ribbon twisted through the streets for him to follow. Some were tied together like the nets Nyx had taught him to make, the familiar beads a colourful glass orb, or an etched window, or a banner strung from a bridge. He breathed easy in the light of the familiar city, in the comfort of the shimmering Wall above him, with an endless blue sky beyond the magic. 

Waves crashing against a rocky shore sounded nearby. Just beyond the next avenue where the park near Nyx’s place should be. He could see the colours of the streamers as bright, sunlit hues woven across the streets and gates, draped over balconies and windows. The claustrophobic press of the Galahdian district gone in the stretch of sky above him, and the usually stagnant air lost in the fresh rush of sea and salt and a heady wild scent he didn’t recognise. He could feel Insomnia dropping away as he stepped into the park and followed the cobblestone path over a hill overgrown with strange wildflowers.

Nyx was pacing, phone in hand as he struggled between trusting Noct’s decision and wanting to run to the rescue. Noct smiled, even as Nyx rushed him, hands wandering to search for injuries or signs of anything still clinging— of any indication of what caused the blockade. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, hero. I told you.”

“What was it? Did—”

“I took care of it.”

“Noct—”

“Did I win? Or not.”

He felt the sigh more than heard it. His Glaive pulling him close and pressing a light kiss to his forehead before offering a little nod. “Yeah, yeah; you won. You did good, little star.”

Nyx’s arm around him was an anchor, and Noct relaxed with the touch. When he woke later, he would wake happy and warm; pressed against his lover as the let the dream of cliffs and ocean dissolve around them, and the everyday, solid apartment returned. He would delete a picture from his phone— blocking the image from his mind, refusing to give thought to the idea it represented, to the look of himself like Ardyn, golden eyed and cloaked in the same shade of power— before Nyx could see it and get angry that he wasn’t told sooner. He would set the coffee on himself, and doze on the sofa as Nyx hummed in the kitchen over breakfast, the groceries purchased the day before put to good use in the warm light of the morning. 

Later, he would let the hijacked dreamscape rattle him, when he was carving new beads for the charms Nyx insisted he keep making for practice. For now, he could listen to Nyx talk about the view— the cliffs of Galahd, with the stretch of cold, grey northern ocean merging in the distance with the horizon and the faint shadow and shimmer of Insomnia’s rocky coast. For now, he could watch the waves at the edge of the world and listen to the comforting crash of waves beating the shores below.


End file.
